Since Cardano introduced global decentralized governance in late 2024, Intersect, a Members Based Organization for the Cardano ecosystem was tasked with the misfortune of defining, executing, and administering a Cardano Budget. As we are on our third pivot, and maybe finally halfway through a semblance of a codifyable process, this article is an attempt to help stragglers and lurkers understand the current state of the budget process and document the Lido DRep participation.
A brief history
In September of 2024, the Cardano achieved one of the biggest milestones in its history with the Chang Hard Fork system upgrade. Every part of the blockchain was affected, from the 1s and 0s that make up to the software to the community and humans using the system. Cardano entered the Conway and Voltaire era, introducing decentralized direct on chain governance. Every ada holder with as little as 5 ada in the wallet can voice their opinion about decisions affecting the system. One of these decisions is the annual budget.
The Cardano Budget Process
The Cardano budget process is a vague idea outlined in the Cardano constitution.
The Cardano Community is expected to periodically propose one or more budgets for the ongoing operation, maintenance and future development of the Cardano Blockchain ecosystem and for covering other costs related to the implementation, administration and maintenance of the decentralized, on-chain governance processes provided for in this Constitution. ~ Cardano Constitution Article IV Section 1.
Section 2 of the same article stipulates that “Cardano Blockchain budgets shall specify a process for overseeing use of funds from Cardano Blockchain treasury withdrawals including designating one or more administrators who shall be responsible for such oversight.”
With these words as winds for their sails, Intersect, a Wyoming United States-based Members Based Organization, was formed and self-tasked with creating a budget process and offering their services as administrator to perform oversight as required by the constitution.
There’s been two separate attempts at defining a process but for one reason or another each was scrapped half-way through or at the last minute. The current 4 weeks long process goes something like this:
- Go to gov.tools and submit anything you want–any idea. There are no explicit goals or guidance for what the finally assembled budget should achieve. Whatever comes to mind can be submitted.
- There is a soft temperature check directly on gov.tools as you are submitting your ideas. Anyone can see and comment on your ideas but only DReps can give a thumbs up or down.
- All the ideas are sorted by DRep engagement and sentiment analysis from the comments. The data is extracted and put into a different off-chain voting tool for final DRep sentiment voting.
- Final DRep sentiment voting happens over a 3 day long (4 to 6 hours per session) Budget Reconciliation workshop. During the workshop and at the end of the 3 days, DReps are expected to vote again with a final sentiment.
- After the second sentiment vote, proposals with over 50% yeses (by total ada power held by dreps) will be gathered into one list and put into a full on-chain governance Budget Info Action.
- This info action will live on the Cardano Blockchain for 30 days. At the end of the 30 days, if the Info Action has achieved more than 50% of the vote by voting power by ada, all items on the list will be considered funded.
- Finally, one more vote. All items ratified to receive funding will then be allowed to submit treasury withdrawal governance action. DReps will again have to vote on the explicit treasury withdrawal but this time with a 67% yes vote for ada to leave the treasury and make its way into a destination wallet.
2025 is a coming of age for Cardano. “A New Dawn”, according to Intersect. This has never been done before in the Blockchain space. Ethereum co-founder Vatalik in his Notes on Blockchain Governance famously “argue that “tightly coupled” on-chain voting is overrated” and that, “the status quo of “informal governance” as practiced by Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Zcash and similar systems is much less bad than commonly thought.”
What Cardano is experimenting to achieve is not surprisingly disorienting, frustrating, and fraught with missteps and easily understandable woes. As someone who is very close to the Intersect’s budget process including sitting on the Steering Committee that receives weekly reports from the Budget Committee, I still get lost and confused. One day I am in a meeting and know something to be true, the very next there would be a slight process pivot overnight that renders what I know now inaccurate. These challenges and frustrations are echoed constantly on social media.
In spite of all this however, all signs point forward. So far the current process is looking like it will get us Cardano first official budget. On May 12, 2025 Intersect ticked forward to Step 5 and submitted an on-chain Budget Info Action: Cardano Blockchain Ecosystem Budget - 275M ada Administered by Intersect.
Next, us DReps are up!
The Lido Drep: Guiding principles and votes
You may know that we have a DRep account open for public delegation via id drep1yg7s3wsvh4jmmv5fys6hrsnrkch8x6zfamgd8nhfvhz5r2ctdy57k. We’ve been following and participating in the budget process through every twist, turn, and head bang. We’ve participated and voted on every line item of the current budget process. Here’s the tldr;
Principle #1
Our general rationale focuses around trying to start from a place of purpose and intention. In February a non-binding resolution Info Action was proposed for “Defining the Cardano Vision and Roadmap for 2025 and beyond.” We, along with 63.43% of the voting ada voted yes for this vision. So our basic rationale started with this vision and roadmap. For every line item on the 2025 budget, we ask how well it supports this roadmap. If it was a clear yes, it received a Yes vote from the Lido DRep. If we weren’t sure, it received an Abstain or No vote.
Principle #2
The other factor we considered were proposals backed by multi-lateral institutions… This includes Intercommittees, community groups or member’s based organization-like structures comprising prominent businesses and institutions within the ecosystem. With a very few exceptions, proposals from individuals and single companies received an automatic No. The rationale here is that individuals and companies bound by putting their immediate needs first should not be setting the priority for Cardano.
Lido Drep Yes Votes
Here is a list of our Yes Votes:
A member-based organization for the Cardano ecosystem: Intersect
Cardano Builder DAO
Cardano Summit 2025 and regional tech events
OSC Budget Proposal - Paid Open Source Model for Sustainable Development
Growth & Marketing Committee (GMC) Budget Proposal
Cardano Governance Workstreams
The Cardano community's open-source tool for participation in its governance: Cardano Govtool
Amplify Cardano: Community-Led Events Fund by Rare Network
Membership & Community Committee (MCC) - Global Community Hubs Expansion Program
Daedalus 2025 Service Enhancement
Cardano Product Committee: Community-driven 2030 Cardano Vision and 2026 roadmap insights collection via workshops and structured product research
DRep Incentivization Framework
Cardano Constitutional Committee Formation and Governance Training with the SanchoNet Education Network
Hardware Wallets Maintenance
Cardano 2030 Vision: Complement to the community proposal - A Futures Weaving Process
Ledger App Rewrite
MLabs Core Tool Maintenance & Enhancement: Plutarch
Pallas: Sustaining Critical Rust Tooling for Cardano
Dolos: Sustaining a Lightweight Cardano Data Node
OpShin - Python Smart Contracts for Cardano
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